Looking to purchase laptop - emphasis on a strong battery life

[esoterickk]

Hi guys,

Wasn't sure what was the right forum to post this in sorry, but this one seemed to be the most fitting!

As the title suggest, I'm looking to purchase a laptop. The one real main thing I'm looking for in a laptop is that it has a great battery life. Ideally I'd like to be able to have it running for ~15-16 hours without dying (mainly for long plane trips). As a secondary, would like it to perform at a decent enough level to be able to play WoW/LoL without issue.

I don't think some of these points are overly applicable in this case, but I'll include anyway:

Budget: $500-$2000
Resolution: N/A? (not too sure how much this changes on laptops)
Games / Settings Desired: Able to play WoW/LoL without issue on medium to high settings
Any other intensive software or special things you do (Frequent video encoding, 3D modeling, etc): Not particularly.
Country: Australia, but will purchase from US/Amazon
Parts that can be reused: None
Do you need an OS?: Yes
Do you need peripherals (e.g. monitor, mouse, keyboard, speakers, etc)?: No

I've taken a look at reviews for laptops with longer lasting battery, and most seem to lean towards various laptops from Lenovo. Haven't had any experience with them (nor really heard of the brand in Australia), so I'm not too sure how they'd go.

Anyway, if there's anything else I need to add let me know! Just mainly want a laptop that won't die on long plane trips and can watch movies/shows throughout, while seconding as a simple gaming substitute when I don't have my desktop available.

Thanks!

[Acideyeliner]

You could always buy an extra battery (or even two), rather than pay out the ass for one battery that lasts forever. Only a 5 min downtime to take old battery out, new one in, and reboot. Then you can spend more of your budget on a great gaming machine.

[Chickat]

Any gaming laptop will have a short battery life. When I play WoW mine lats just over an hour but 4-6 hours while not playing wow.

[esoterickk]

You could always buy an extra battery (or even two), rather than pay out the ass for one battery that lasts forever. Only a 5 min downtime to take old battery out, new one in, and reboot. Then you can spend more of your budget on a great gaming machine.

Did not even know this was possible. >.> Haven't had any experience with laptops so don't know what to look for in those regards! The only one I used for a very short while didn't seem to have a removable battery.

Will look into this too however, thanks!

[Masark]

Did not even know this was possible. >.> Haven't had any experience with laptops so don't know what to look for in those regards! The only one I used for a very short while didn't seem to have a removable battery.

Will look into this too however, thanks!

Most modern laptops have a removable battery. Batteries are consumables. They wear out and need replacement after a few years.

Though an external battery might suit you better. You wouldn't have to power down to swap the battery and wouldn't need to swap the batteries in and out of the laptop to recharge them for the return flight.

For example, this unit. It has roughly 1.5x the capacity of the battery in my 17" Sager. But you'd probably need a couple or three of these to last through a 16 hour flight.

[Remilia]

Only ones I remember when I was looking around for laptop that has good battery life was the Sony Vaio Pro 13 and Mac Book Air(Pro?). Both however are expensive as hell. They're relatively weak in terms of playing games too.

[axhed]

a couple years ago i remember seeing laptops with integrated gpu's and discrete cards that would switch back and forth.

good luck getting external batteries through airport security.

[May90]

Any gaming laptop will have a short battery life. When I play WoW mine lats just over an hour but 4-6 hours while not playing wow.

This. You just can't find a good performance gaming laptop that won't drain energy like crazy. I suggest you take two separate laptops, one slow and tiny that lasts over 10 hours and another for gaming; for $2000 you can get both of them of a very high quality.

For long battery life, what you want is a "netbook". They are very small and slow, long battery life is their focus. I can't really recommend any particular model since I haven't had any experience with modern netbooks, but if you could buy a netbook for $400 3 years ago that would last 12 hours, then I figure you should be able to get even more today. Especially if you, as suggested, buy 1-2 additional batteries and carry then with you.

[Masark]

a couple years ago i remember seeing laptops with integrated gpu's and discrete cards that would switch back and forth.

Yes. Nvidia call it "Optimus". I think basically all laptops with 800-series and newer Nvidia graphics have that feature.

It helps with battery life, but not all that much.

[Boffjan]

Not sure if Mac is an option. The Mac Book Air has 12 hours of batterie life acording to Apple. Several people say they have gotten 14-15 hours out of it on plane rides with the screem dimmed down. It is however certanly NOT a gaming machine.